Adopt a smoke-free home.”
Maya Vijayaraghavan, MD, and John P. Pierce, PhD, from the University
of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, led this investigation
into ways to reduce smoking in the US.
According to these researchers, laws that have made smoking illegal
indoors have been one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking in
the US.
For this study, the researchers looked at data from the Tobacco Use
Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS), which is a
monthly survey conducted by the US Census Bureau on people 15 and older
not living in jail or a mental institution.
From 2006 to 2007, and over three separate surveys, 150,967 people aged 18 and older responded to the survey.
The researchers found that persons living below the federal poverty
line were 38 percent more likely to have smoked more than 100 cigarettes
over the course of their lifetimes than individuals living in moderate-
to high-income households.
Persons living below the federal poverty line were 21 percent less
likely to have quit smoking and twice as likely to be current smokers
than individuals in moderate- to high-income households.
Smokers living in a home where smoking was not allowed smoked 35
percent fewer cigarettes per day than smokers living in a home where
smoking was permitted.
Individuals living in a smoke-free home were more successful at
quitting smoking compared with persons trying to quit in homes where
smoking was permitted (7.9 percent versus 1.5 percent, respectively).
The authors of this study concluded that adopting a smoke-free home
helped people either smoke fewer cigarettes per day or quit smoking
altogether.
“We are telling people that if they really want to quit, then
introducing a smoke-free home will help them be successful,” Dr. Pierce
said in a press statement.
This study was published in October in the American Journal of Public Health.
The UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program provided funding for this project. No conflicts of interest were declared.
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